Saturday, August 20, 2016

The Freedoms of Religion and Speech: Essentials of Liberty in Law

By Rudy
Barnes, Jr.

The
freedoms of religion and speech are first among the freedoms of our Bill of
Rights and also fundamental human rights in the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights. They are
essentials of liberty in law for any government, but they are denied in Islamic
nations where apostasy and blasphemy laws are enforced as part of Islamic Law,
or shari’a. In fundamentalist Islam, or
Islamism, shari’a prohibits any secular law that conflicts with its dictates, and
that includes libertarian human rights.

There
can be no liberty in law or peace and justice without the freedoms of religion
and speech, and those freedoms are denied when shari’a functions like a
constitution and preempts fundamental human rights, as it does in Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, and Pakistan. But U.S. foreign
policy has been ambivalent on that issue, proclaiming a policy to promote the
freedoms of religion and speech while providing aid and assistance to nations that
deny those freedoms.

On
August 8, 2016, Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinkin presented the annual
report on international religious freedom that affirms its primacy in U.S.
foreign policy:

“Support
for religious liberty guides the U.S. and our foreign policy every day.

…Our
abiding commitment is affirmed by the priority we’ve given to defending and championing
international religious freedom everywhere, but especially where it is under
threat. …When a government denies
religious liberty, it turns citizens who have done nothing wrong into
criminals, igniting tension that breeds contempt, hopelessness, alienation. Far
from a vulnerability or weakness, religious pluralism shows respect for the
beliefs of every citizen and gives each a tangible reason to contribute to the
success of the entire society. That’s why no nation can fulfil its potential if
its people are denied the right to freely choose and openly practice their
faith.”

President
El Sissi of Egypt and Erdogan of Turkey have used apostasy and blasphemy laws
to repress opposition to their authoritarian regimes, often in the name of security
concerns. Secretary Blinkin acknowledged that security is a concern with violent extremist groups, but cautioned:

“But
security concerns are not a defensible reason to suppress peaceful religious
activities, deny fair treatment to religious groups, apply collective
punishments, or deny freedoms that are essential to religious practice,
including those of association, assembly and expression. We express this point not solely to defend
the principle of religious freedom, but also because terrorists are quick to
exploit evidence of discrimination in trying to rationalize their actions and
attract new members. Whatever the
intent, repression tends to fuel terrorism, not stop it, which means that the
denial of religious liberty is not only wrong but profoundly misguided and
self-defeating.”

The
Executive Summary of the International Religious Freedom Report for 2015
cites the brutal enforcement of apostasy and blasphemy laws and vigilante
actions that have been ignored in Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and
Iran. Egypt is not mentioned, perhaps
for political reasons, but there have been numerous reports of similar abuses
there. It is obvious that U.S. foreign
policy has failed to promote the freedoms of religion and speech in the Middle
East.

There
is irony here. While U.S. policy is to promote
the freedoms of religion and speech where it is lacking abroad, at home fundamentalist
believers have carried those freedoms to oppressive extremes. They have demanded the right to discriminate
against homosexuals, who they consider sinners, denying them equal protection
of the law; and some have used religious freedom to fan the flames of religious
hatred. In the U.S., the abuse of the
freedoms of religion and speech by some have undermined liberty in law for
others.

The
radical Islamist terrorists of ISIS thrive on Christian hypocrisy and moral
decadence in libertarian democracies and attract disaffected young Muslims to
their cause with the promise of religious purity through a strict shari’a that imposes
the death penalty for insulting God (blasphemy) and betraying God/Allah by leaving
Islam (apostasy).

After
the Arab Spring it appeared that Islam was becoming more compatible with
libertarian democracy, but a continuous flow of young Muslims to ISIS and a
trend toward Islamism by Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Iran have challenged that
assumption. The refugee crisis has made
matters worse. Public fear and anger
over Muslim refugees has been exploited by populist demagogues to polarize
religions. The jury remains out on whether
Islam will develop into a religion of freedom, justice and peace or one of
oppressive religious laws and violence.

New
strategies are needed to reconcile Islam with libertarian democracy. They have been hampered by an Administration that
denies any connection between Islam and radical Islamist terrorism to placate Muslims
who do not want to associate Islam with terrorism. It is an example of political correctness
hampering national security. ISIS is an
ideology based on a radical form of Islamism.
The ideology cannot be defeated by U.S. military force. It must be denied legitimacy among young
Muslims, and only Muslims can achieve that strategic objective.

Religions
provide their believers with standards of legitimacy (what is right). For a religion to be compatible with freedom and democracy, its standards of legitimacy must be considered voluntary moral
standards rather than enforceable laws.
Judaism and Christianity abandoned enforcement of their religious laws after
the Enlightenment (although Massachusetts still has a blasphemy law on its
books), but Islamist regimes continue to enforce shari’a. There can be no liberty in law in Islam until
apostasy and blasphemy laws are no longer enforced.

The
conflict between libertarian democracy and authoritarian Islamism is testimony
to the pervasive and often perverse role of religion in our politics and
law. The reconciliation of competing religious
ideologies requires that Jews, Christians and Muslims share the greatest commandment to love God and
our neighbors as ourselves as a common
word of faith. We love our neighbors
in other religions by sharing our freedoms of religion and speech with
them. That can reconcile religious
differences and promote liberty in law, together with peace and justice.

Notes
and references:

Liberty
in law
is borrowed from America the Beautiful
(words by Katherine Lee Bates, 1904):

On related commentary on Religion, Human Rights and National Security,
with references to President Obama’s ambiguity on human rights and his
unwillingness to acknowledge any connection between ISIS and Islamism, and the
problem of providing aid to Egypt’s oppressive government while ignoring human
rights violations, see http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/2015/05/religion-human-rights-and-national.html.

On the contrast between human
rights in libertarian democracies of the West and Islamic regimes in the East
under shari’a, and the contrasting views of Islamic scholars on that topic, see
Religion,Legitimacy and the Law: Shari’a,
Democracy and Human Rights (pp 6-17) at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4qPfb4MvEswV2ZHS3hyWTcwbmc/view.